Like many of her peers growing up in the Tar Heel State, Hannah Macie always dreamed of attending the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, about 20 miles from her hometown of Cary. Now a senior studying strategic communication, Macie cherishes the wide variety of options and resources available at the university. “There’s a class for everything here,” she says.
UNC enrolls some 18,500 undergraduates from all 50 states and more than 90 countries, and many students proudly wear Carolina blue to celebrate the school’s top-notch academics and athletics.
If the Division I Tar Heels basketball team wins a matchup against archrival and neighbor Duke University or takes home the NCAA national championship as it did in 2017, beating Gonzaga University, tradition calls for students to “rush” Franklin Street, the lively gathering place just off campus that is home to many shops, restaurants and bars.
The tradition “really makes you feel like a part of the UNC community,” says junior media and journalism major Alexis Allston of Wendell, North Carolina.
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There’s a lot to do on campus, too, with more than 600 student organizations. About 19 percent of undergrads join fraternities and sororities.
Students at Carolina like to have fun, but they take academics very seriously, says junior Carina McDermed, a media and journalism and political science major from Chapel Hill. UNC is highly selective, with just about 26.2 percent of all first-year applicants gaining admission. The admit rate is about 48.8 percent in-state compared with 15.2 percent for non-Carolina natives.
More than 77 undergraduate majors are available. Admission to certain programs, such as business administration, media and journalism, and public health, is competitive.
Incoming students can get used to college academics by taking a small first-year seminar on topics such as Change in the Coastal Ocean or Philosophy on Bamboo. But throughout their academic career at UNC, students will find a mix of large lecture-style and smaller discussion-based courses. The student-faculty ratio is 13-to-1, and only about 15 percent of classes have more than 50 students.
A relatively new program with nearby North Carolina State University–Raleigh offers undergraduates a degree in biomedical and health sciences engineering.
All students must fulfill an experiential learning requirement, which could include a study abroad stint, an internship, a performing arts project, mentored research or a service-learning experience.
Participating in community service is “definitely a huge part” of campus life at UNC, says 2017 grad Jenn Morrison, a strategic communication major from Brookeville, Maryland. Morrison participated in a spring break service experience in the eastern part of the state and took a course on social and economic justice.
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Undergraduate research opportunities are also abundant. Junior Wanyi Chen, from Shenzhen, China, says the university does a good job with helping undergraduates find research opportunities, especially with about 10,900 graduate and professional students also enrolled.
Chen, an information science and cultural studies double major, completed an independent study research project last year on computer science education. Students can take advantage of the resources available through the Office for Undergraduate Research to help land opportunities.
Minority students make up roughly one-third of UNC’s latest first-year class. Senior economics major Eric Smith, of Warsaw, North Carolina, says finding a social group at UNC as an African-American male was somewhat challenging at first, but that the school is actively trying to help students from diverse backgrounds through multicultural events, mentoring opportunities and other support services.
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— North Carolina State University–Raleigh
This story is excerpted from the U.S. News “Best Colleges 2018” guidebook, which features in-depth articles, rankings and data.
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North Carolina College Road Trip: University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill originally appeared on usnews.com
